Then he was gone, Bess trotting next to him, and Grace was left staring at the empty garden path.
She went to make a cup of coffee, before deciding to head down to the cellar again. As she looked around, she wished she could afford to pay someone to empty the place, to save her the stress, but she didn’t have any money to spare. At least Annabel would be back soon to help out, she consoled herself, although she imagined that Annabel might have convulsions if she saw the state of this place.
However, she hadn’t come down here simply to commiserate with herself over the hard work ahead. Something had caught her eye earlier – the boxes she’d spotted in the corner. She hadn’t wanted to check them out while Ben was there, but now she opened one of them and stared miserably inside. They were Adam’s mementos. A cricket statue. An old T-shirt with handwriting all over it, the jokes and scribbles of teenagers elated at their impending freedom from school. A collection of Arsenal programmes. The problem was, Grace had seen these things before. They had been in the London flat she and Adam had shared. Which meant he’d brought them down here. So it looked like he had known there was a cellar, after all.
The day’s events weighed heavily on Grace’s mind as she sat in the lounge next to Millie, who was slowly turning the pages of a picture book. She wished Annabel were here to lighten the atmosphere. Instead she listened as the rain turned to ice, the hailstorm hammering on the windowpanes in cracking staccato bursts. All around her the shadows of the room languidly stretched themselves out, resettling as the darkness grew. She jumped as the upstairs landing creaked, not yet used to the cottage’s strange nocturnal echoes.
Why hadn’t Adam told her about the cellar? Was this an indication that he had something to hide? Her father was convinced that if Adam had been about to vanish, there would have been warning signs, but Grace had always been adamant there weren’t. Adam had been his usual self on that last morning, joking around, his face glowing with pride each time his glance fell on Millie. It was a new look in his eyes, one that Grace was still getting used to, but it was already among her favourites. He was minding Millie for the afternoon, while Grace did some shopping in town. It was the first time she had left Millie for so long, and she was both excited to be going and reluctant to leave.
By the time she got home, laden with bags, Adam had taken Millie out, leaving her that strange, serious note. And she had never seen him again.
He wouldn’t leave Millie like that, Grace knew it. But after the police had combed the area looking for him and found nothing, they began to suggest he might have run away. It wouldn’t be the first time, they said. New fathers sometimes couldn’t cope with the responsibility. And he’d withdrawn a thousand pounds from their account the day before he vanished.
Adam had told Grace about the money – he’d said he intended to keep it at the cottage, because they were so isolated – but she had never found it. The police thought he might have used the cash to do a bunk. He’d left the baby where he knew she’d be found, and disappeared.
But Grace had so many questions. Why not leave Millie in the cottage? Why run away without telling her, cutting off all contact? And if he was ready to vanish into the night, then why on earth would he have moved Grace all the way out into the country before he did so? Not to mention the fact that her last memory of Adam before she left for the shops was of him sitting on the floor in front of the television, half paying attention to a morning chat show, his legs crossed and his baby girl cradled within them, her mouth clamped around a bottle. He had appeared so relaxed as he tilted his head up to kiss his wife goodbye. He’d said, ‘Go on, enjoy the break … we’ll be fine.’ No, he was not a man about to run off – whatever he’d been doing the day before, and no matter that he hadn’t told her about the cellar.
Grace tried to guide her mind away from these never-ending loops of questions. She needed to stop getting caught up with thoughts of what might have happened. The questions had crippled her for the past year, and she wanted to go forwards now. She was here to sort out the cottage, not rake over the past. This was a hiatus between the past and future, a necessary stopgap, that was all.